Correlations among PPARγ,DNMT1,and DNMT3B expression levels and pancreatic cancer

Emerging evidence indicates that peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (pparγ) and dna methyltransferases (dnmts) play a role in carcinogenesis. in this study we aimed to evaluate the expression of pparγ,dnmt1,and dnmt3b and their correlation with clinical-pathological features in patients with pancreatic cancer (pc),and to define the effect of pparγ activation on dnmts expression in pc cell lines. qrt-pcr analysis showed that dnmt3b expression was downregulated in tumors compared to normal tissues (p = 0.03),whereas pparγ and dnmt1 levels did not show significant alterations in pc patients. expression levels between pparγ and dnmt1 and between dnmt1 and dnmt3b were highly correlated (p = 0.008 and p = 0.05 resp.). dnmt3b overexpression in tumor tissue was positively correlated with both lymph nodes spreading (p = 0.046) and resection margin status (p = 0.04),and a borderline association with perineural invasion (p = 0.06) was found. furthermore,high levels of dnmt3b expression were significantly associated with a lower mortality in the whole population (hr = 0.485; 95 ci = 0.262 0.895,p = 0.02) and in the subgroup of patients without perineural invasion (hr = 0.314; 95 ci = 0.130 0.758; p = 0.01),while such association was not observed in patients with tumor invasion into perineural structures (p = 0.70). in conclusion,in vitro and in vivo pparγ and dnmts appear interrelated in pc,and this interaction might influence cell phenotype and disease behavior. © 2012 valerio pazienza et al.